A $14 million loan from the African Development Fund was approved on 25 June in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire to support industrial development and SMEs in Guinea.
According to the statement received by APA, the financing, which comes from Pillar 1 of the Transition Support Facility, a financing instrument of the financial institution designed for fragile or transitional countries, is intended to enable Guinea to “strengthen its institutional capacities to promote its industrial development and the resilience of its Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).”
As a result, women and young people will benefit from increased opportunities through the strengthening of the private sector support ecosystem, enabling them to better seize the opportunities offered by the new industrial policy and the provisions of the law on local content.
“The main challenge that this project seeks to resolve is the current lack of institutional capacity to steer and implement industrial policy, both at macroeconomic and sectoral level and at microeconomic level, at company level,” the document said.
Ousmane Fall, Director of the Industrial Development and Trade Department of the African Development Bank (ADB), said that “support from the African Development Fund will enable Guinea to address the root causes of fragility and consolidate sources of long-term resilience through institutional development for sustainable and inclusive industrialisation, promoting private sector development and the consolidation of a peaceful and resilient society.”
According to Mr. Fall, Guinea has considerable industrial development potential that has not yet been fully exploited, and it needs to equip itself with the necessary capacities to promote the development of new productive capacities to help diversify its economy and create jobs.
The project has three components: capacity-building for planning, steering and implementing development policy; integrated support for resilience, promotion of green industry and growth of SMEs-SMIs; and project management and coordination.
It reinforces the ADB Group’s ongoing activities in Guinea, which are aimed at “developing agro-industry, special agro-industrial processing zones, developing the private sector by formalising businesses and promoting entrepreneurship among young people and women.”
